Fecundation of the Ovum. 391 



brought forward the importance of these mobile particles in the 

 I act of fecundation in animals. Brongniart*, Schleidenf, NagehJ, 

 P Griffith §, Suminskill, and especially Hofmeister^ and Hen- 

 frey**, have also noticed the importance of the movements of 

 the phytosperms, or vegetable spermatozoa, and the contents of 

 the pollen in the act of fecundation. From what we know of 

 the generation of the Ferns, the Lycopodiacese, the Equisetaceae, 

 the lihizocarpese, the Mosses, and the Charace^, does it not 

 present so great an analogy with the generation of animals, that 

 :. the relation must strike everybody ? In each case we have 

 oogenous and spermagenous bodies, which are in such similar 

 conditions, that we may ask why we may not say simply ovary 

 instead of archegonium, and testicle instead of antheridium ? The 

 analogy goes so far, that we find in both groups examples of 

 alternate generations m accordance with the same type. On 

 one hand, for instance, we have a Hydra which produces, asexu- 

 ally, buds which become converted into Medusae, whilst the 

 Medusa acquires sexual organs and produces polypes in its 

 turn, after fecundation ; and, on the other hand, we have Ferns 

 which produce buds (the so-called spores) asexually, which are 

 converted into a prothallium, and this developes antheridia and 

 archegonia, that is to say, sexual organs, and in its turn re- 

 produces Ferns, after a fecundation. The sexuality of plants 

 has been long in making its way into science, and, up to the 

 most recent times, the entire group of the so-called Crypto- 

 gamia has been excluded from the privilege of possessing sexes. 

 Is it not a singular circumstance, that it should have been re- 

 served for our age to show that these Cryptogamia are of all 

 plants those of which the sexual organs possess the greatest 

 analogy with those of animals? All,, or nearly all the Crypto- 

 gamia in fact appear to possess, on the one hand, archegonia 

 (or ovaries), and, on the other, antheridia (or testicles) ; in the 

 latter, spermatozoids are developed. (We prefer the term sper- 

 matozoid to that of phytosperm, because it is applicable at once 

 to plants and animals.) We are acquainted with these organs 

 in the Equisetacese, the lihizocarpese, the Ferns, the Lycopodi- 



* Rech. sur la Generation et le Developpement de I'Embryon dans les 

 Vegetaux plianerogames. Ann. des Sci. Nat. 1828. 



t Grimdziige der \A'issenscliaftlichen Botanik. 



X Bewegliehe Spiralfaden (Samenfaden?) an Farren; in Schleiden imd 

 Ntigeli's Zeitschr. fiir wiss. Botanik, 1844. 



§ Linn. Trans, xxi. 



II Zur Entwickelung der Farrenkrauter, 1848. 



iy Untersachungen des Vorganges bei der Befruchtimg der ffinotheren. 

 Bot. Zeitung von Mohl und Schlechtendal, 1847- 



** Linn. Trans, xxi.; Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. ix. 1862. 



